Charged particle beam exposure techniques have been conventionally known which form a fine pattern by using charged particle beams such as electron beams (for example, see Patent Document 1).
As one of such charged particle beam exposure techniques, a multicolumn charged particle beam exposure apparatus including a plurality of columns which generate charged particle beams has been also known (for example, see Patent Document 2).
The multicolumn charged particle beam exposure apparatus can perform the drawing of patters in a simultaneous and parallel manner using the plurality of columns, thereby significantly improving the speed of exposure process.